The doctors had suggested a wait for two weeks to allow the foetus to grow further, but the judges ordered an immediate termination to avoid further trauma to the girl.

Dr Nikhil Datar, who discovered the pregnancy on 9 August when the girl was taken to him to seek treatment for what her parents believed to be obesity, described Wednesday's order as "a path-breaking judgement".

The 13-year-old's case came to light just days after a 10-year-old, also a rape victim, gave birth to a baby girl in the northern city of Chandigarh.

She too was 32 weeks pregnant, but she was denied permission to abort after a doctors' panel said that termination of her pregnancy would be "too risky".

In May, a similar case was reported from the northern state of Haryana where a 10-year-old, allegedly raped by her stepfather, was allowed to abort. None of the girls can be named for legal reasons.

The BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi says three similar cases in the past few months have shocked India and led to calls for a better way to deal with them.

The cases came to light so late because the children themselves were not aware of their condition and their parents also missed the obvious signs because they couldn't imagine that their daughters could be pregnant at such a young age, our correspondent adds.

Image copyrightAFP

The scale of abuse in India

A child under 16 is raped every 155 minutes, a child under 10 every 13 hours